It is well known in motor vehicle interiors to provide a vehicle panel such as the instrument panel by vacuum forming a skin over a rigid substrate panel. The instrument panel typically has a complex three dimensional shape to provide an aesthetically pleasing appearance as well as provide functionality via openings in the panel for the mounting of various components such as instrument housings, ashtrays, glove box door and filler panels. The formed skin is typically a sheet of vinyl material, a leather, or other suitable material. The components to be mounted within the openings are typically of molded plastic.
A harmonious appearance is provided via a texture pattern on the vinyl skin and a matching texture pattern on the molded component. The proper matching of the grained pattern between the components and the skin makes the dissimilar materials of the skin and the molded components visually indistinguishable.
The skin is provided by texturing the vinyl with the intended grain pattern in an extrusion process using a roller having the grain pattern engraved on it so that vinyl adopts the grain pattern when the roller makes contact with the vinyl.
A difficulty is caused in matching the grains between the formed skin and the molded component because forming and stretching the vinyl skin over the complex shape of the panel causes the grain to be stretched. For example, the stretching of the skin over an instrument panel may cause the vinyl to be stretched 6% in one region adjacent to the glove box door and 60% at a different region adjacent to the glove box door.
The prior art has either not compensated for the mismatch or has compensated for the mismatched stretch by applying a stretch factor (such as 30%) to the texture pattern of the molded component to attempt a better match of the molded component with the adjacent region of the formed skin. However, this grain matching method can only approximate a complete matching of the grain and leaves distortion which may be visible to the vehicle occupant.
It would be desirable to provide a new and improved method for more precisely matching the grain pattern between a grained skin stretched over a panel and a molded component installed within an opening of the panel.
Accordingly, the present invention provides a method by which the mold for each component can be engraved with a compensated grain pattern so that each of the molded components installations into the openings of the panel will have a grained pattern stretched to precisely match the stretched grain pattern of the formed skin portions surrounding the openings.